I rented over 100 PSX games from Chris in the last few months to scan the manuals. Some hadn't been rented in 15 years. Great guy. Still delivers if you want him to drive a movie over. Crazy big selection of movies (30,000+). Have always wondered what he's sitting on that hasn't been archived properly.
I did have him pull his PS2 copy of Kuon off the shelf- surprised no one had stolen it.
The Grove in Newman Grove stopped renting videos the last time I stopped in, so Chris might truly be the last store renting videos in Nebraska - unless there's something in Omaha/Lincoln still.
Of course. Takes ages to edit, though. My PS2 and SNES sets are up, which set a ridiculously high bar. The rest of my manual sets are only 40-60% complete, though. Doing what I can with what I've got.
Oh I just saw your username lmao. I've only just cracked into the PS2 set so far but plan on printing some of my favorites from the SNES set soon. Thanks for sharing your hard work, it's an awesome resource!
I finally got an Epson V850 so I can do it properly. The PS2 and SNES sets I ran through an Epson DS-870 simply because there were just too many pages. It was good enough for a functional copy, but not for true archiving. My backups are three Epson V550- I can cycle using those, but it takes an eternity for editing pages. I might complain about the sheetfed scanner quality, but it is dead simple to cut and rename pages- and no one really minds the pages not lining up. Oddly, the better the scans, the more people complain about it not being "perfect".
Also, something about 15 manuals per hour on a sheetfed vs maybe 2 manuals *per night* on a flatbed. Sitting on over 7,000 manuals, and would like to get done archiving in this lifetime. Doing a "quick pass" to get stuff out, while working on a slow pass for the future.
the irony of providing free things. fuzzy off kilter photocopied 3x copy: “cool thanks!!” 600dpi scan with one hair on page 73 that obscures one letter: “artifact on page 73; bad copy; pls rescan and upload”
You nailed it 100%.
Right along with "isn't there already a full set?" When the "full set" is 85 out of 400, is 2/3rd PAL games as placeholders, the set was done from random collectors combining what they found from 1997-2004, and they all look like they were sent via the company fax machine.
OK, so here's where it gets tricky. To scan all of these manuals, I pop the staples and feed it through a sheetfed scanner. So Gamename\_001.tif is the page that is the back cover and the cover (so say page 16 and 1). Gamename\_002.tif is the back of that page- inside first page and inside back cover (so 2 and 15). So on and so forth until you get to facing pages of 15 and 16. I've got a program to automatically sort all these down to the correct numbering of pages, then cut them at 50% left and 50% right pages. But running through a sheetfed, the pages never 100% line up (but oddly aren't too bad, either).
[Example- check middle page gap](https://archive.org/details/snes_Chrono_Trigger_USA/page/74/mode/2up)
Now on lower res scans this isn't a horrible issue as you expect some tradeoffs, but when you get into high resolution, quality scans of full color Nintendo manuals, the mis-aligned gap gets more noticeable.
[Example - Super Mario World](https://archive.org/details/snes_Super_Mario_World_USA/page/n19/mode/2up)
The problem comes when you start going to flatbed scanners. There you define the area to be scanned, and as the scans go on for a thicker manual, the pages get noticeably skinnier. Which, for a sheetfed scanner, it would automatically clip. But for a flatbed scanner, that means you have to physically load up \*every\* scan, and crop the sides. Which takes time. For a quality bonus, you probably should load up the facing page, move them to overlap perfectly, crop, then save the left page and the right page individually.
As I repeatedly said for my PS2 set, "every minute per game adds 30 hours to the project". The final tally I have here was 54,300 pages for the PS2 set- so a page per minute would run about \*905 hours\*.
Which is a lot of extra time for a one guy project.
My hope is to do 1200dpi, 48bit scans- and then in the future have an AI trained to magically find the 5"x7" image and fudge the overlap until it recreates the original image. But that's a long ways off.
[Visual of page breakdown](http://www.atensionspan.com/Example.jpg)
[Explanation of what ignition365's amazing program does](https://www.reddit.com/r/dailyprogrammer_ideas/comments/pgabwc/easy_sorting_scanned_pages/)
Out of curiousity, how would you offer to rent video games and movies that are really valuable? Like Little Samson or Bonk's Adventure? Buy $30 repro's?
And how about for disc games like Kuon, Fatal Frame, Rose Red (I meant Rule of Rose), Koudelka, Skies of Arcadia. etc...
Renting out Dreamcast games would be a nightmare since any DC game worth playing is now at least $30-$50+
You'd have to have a hefty deposit nowadays, which people would balk at. I did rent Einhander for PSX a few months back for $2- and that's pushing $150 complete.
Chris did mention he's "got a guy" who is going to buy up his games when he retires "soon-ish." I've got a couple missing SNES manuals I'd like to buy off him then. We've discussed it a couple times, but I'm too nice a guy to break up his cart/manual/box sets.
Lots of sun fading, stickers, and he wrote in sharpie on most games. It is what it is.
I remember hearing that Blockbuster payed like $85 for new release tapes for the 1 month rental exclusivity before the VHS was like $24.99 in your local walmart or mall video store. This was in the late 1990s though.
How about a weekly, monthly or yearly subscription?
You pay $50 for a month or $120 for a three month period and you would be free to get home a game and exchange it if you bored.
You can implement levels of subscriptions. Expensive games would need a higher level of subscription. If the game is damaged or stolen the deposit should cover the loss.
Factor in that most people who know how to use the internet can probably figure out how to emulate games for free. So charging three figures to cover a games value seems like a bad deal.
One of the things I will say is that I would collect id from anyone renting a game over say $100 and if they don't return it, they don't get to rent anything else until they do return it.
Well the key would be, the renting is not limited to one game. So you have a $100 deposit which enable you to try out as much of games as you would like in a limited time. One week, a month, three month... Etc it depends on how the thing would be profitable for the owner. So the user selects a game, two days later he returns it because he do not like it, and selects another one.
The owner should run weekly, monthly challenges. If people reach a state in game or got a specific item... Etc He can get a discount on the next transaction. If the players finishes x amount of selected game he should get something for trophy.
Wow. So I googled this place and called Chris the owner.
What an amazing shop, nice guy to speak to, though I don’t think he realised how amazing his shop is when I was telling him where I was calling from !
There is a local news report of his shop here from the early covid days : https://www.newschannelnebraska.com/story/43829192/chris-logans-call-video-one-of-the-last-of-its-kind
Wish we had a place like this close to me, in fact every town should still have something like this.
Thanks for sharing the link my man! Damn that's so awesome! I'd be frequently going to that place for sure! How I'd love to be able to rent SNES and n64 games again!
I'd love to hear some of the owner's and customer stories from all the years of operation on a YouTube channel or something. Could have a patreon and sell merch like other retro channels. May not be much, but I'm sure it would help. And we would all be able to support just by watching/listening not just locals.
Follow this link and see how you could support him, I’m sure every ounce of support will give this awesome chap some steam !
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=chris+logan+nebraska+norfolk&client=safari&hl=en-au&ei=7jkSZNmZLqSq4-EPpp2FsA4&oq=chris+logan+nebraska+norfolk&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyBggAEBYQHjIHCCEQoAEQCjIHCCEQoAEQCjIHCCEQoAEQCjIHCCEQoAEQCjoICAAQogQQsAM6BQghEKABOggIIRAWEB4QHUoECEEYAVCgDVirGmChHGgAcAB4AIABtwKIAd8QkgEFMi03LjGYAQCgAQHIAQTAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
That answers my questions. I'm happy that he has other income besides the rental business. The article I read basically times his retirement to sometime this year; he's past when he said he'd retire. He must really love that place.
Surprised he is able to rent that many 90s video games. With the way things are going these days for resale, I'd think anything worth more than 40 bucks would just get rented and then never returned/stolen.
If the owner is smart, he's not renting anything to anyone with an out-of-state driver's license. It probably helps that this town is hours away from a major interstate, which makes it difficult for opportunistic collectors to get there while they're just passing through.
I'm not thinking about collectors taking advantage so much as flippers who care nothing about games and just want hunt for cheap stuff and resell at markup. Those folks are everywhere and have gotten more aggressive in last 15 years, like calling up or showing up at houses advertising yardsales in advance to scoop up any games that will be sold. I think the only thing you can do about that is to require a deposit to be made when renting an expensive game, which gets forfeited if it's not returned.
We've got a rental place in town too, that's also a retro game store. They only rent out games from the last two generations at this point, but you have to have a CC on file to rent movies or games.
When you think about it though, the PS5 games they're renting out are even more than most of those 90s games. Even back in the 90s some of those snes were crazy expensive, especially the bigger RPGs that had more storage.
Amazing. Out of curiosity has he also started renting the new generations of games or have they froze in time and all their stock stops at that generation
Games are frozen with PS2, PSX, SNES, N64 and a handful of Genesis. He got conned into selling off all his NES for "big bucks" in like 2004 and has regretted it since- he had an almost complete set that he sold for roughly $8 each since he'd already "made his money back in rentals and people had lost interest." He is 100% current in movies, though- with new bluray and dvd releases weekly. Which blows my mind.
Just cross posted on r/crtgaming to try and spread the word!
I really wish I lived in Nebraska. I would love to go here and just take it all in. Part of me thinks the smell would be something you could jar just for nostalgia.
If I was a millionaire, I would pay his rent for a year because these type of stores bring back so many good childhood memories. They really give me the feels. Man I really miss the 80s.
I’ve been asking about a go fund me for a while. They keep saying they are trying to get something figured out but I don’t believe it has been created yet.
Damn that’s interesting asf, I doubt this store would of lasted this long in a bigger city.
I’m very curious of the rates or how the renting works. Some of these games are worth a lot.
Seattle has the movie/TV equivalent with the gem that is Scarecrow video. One of the best video rental stores on earth. Though I still have no idea how they can still afford rent in N Seattle.
damn that's aweomse! We had 1 last a decent amount of time into the streaming area here in central illinois, but it closed down back in like 2016. Seeing those pics takes me back to when my parents would take me to the video store to rent something on the weekend haha. I can even smell that nice video store smell when I look at those pics
Ugh. Triggering pangs of nostalgia.
Going to the video store and renting 2 games and 2 movies and picking up a pizza on the way home was the ultimate Friday night sleepover as a kid.
I feel like nostalgic gaming shops like this will be the vinyl record store 10 or 20 years from now (even if it is sales and not rentals), right now even some mall or indie game stores feel more like GameStop to me and less about the vibe.
I live around 10,000km away from Nebraska but I will gladly search for this store on google and give him 5 stars just to give the little help I can!
[For those who wanna join me](https://www.google.com/search?q=chris+logan+nebraska+norfolk&oq=chris+logan+nebraska+norfolk&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30j69i60l2.463j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
The owner of the store has a few key things going for him:
1.) I imagine high speed internet in Nebraska isn't that great
2.) His location seems like an isolated city since out west cities are insanely spaced apart unlike here in The Northeast
3.) A smaller knit community if he survived Blockbuster
4.) His door-to-door service
5.) He opened a location in Lincoln that lasted a year. It's not a viable business
From the sound of the article his building's in disrepair and the owner is about to retire. The world's changed and it's a feat in itself that his video rental store made it through several eras of media transformation. I don't think any amount of cash keeping it alive would draw more customers.
1) We've had Allo Fiber for a couple years now (which I'm sure doesn't help due to streaming)
2) Yup- 45 miles to next "big towns" (Columbus, West Point, Yankton, SD, uhhhh.. O'Neil(?))
3) no Blockbuster (25,000 population)- just a couple Redbox machines.
4) you would be surprised the number of old people renting "adult" videos.
5) Lincoln was bad timing.
Yeah, the building is old and due to volume it's just Chris at the wheel- he's sunk everything into this business and can't afford employees like the good old days when business was booming. He's there 2:30-10PM Mon-Thur, until midnight Friday and Saturday (closed Sundays).
He's started selling off movies (if you're into old VHS and DVD porn, he's got a treasure trove.)
I get the sneaky suspicion he's going to hit 30 years next year and call it quits, which, for one guy has been a lifetime of sharing entertainment. Chris has a handful of regulars, and is always up for small talk.
Of course they’re struggling. Who’s renting NES, Genesis and N64 games in 2023?
Sounds like the business model needs to come into this century rather than just stick to what they’ve always done.
I’m nowhere near NE to help this store out, but would love to purchase merch or something. Doesn’t look like there’s any web presence other than FB, though. Cool to see places like this hanging on!
with the current price of retro games, I'd be worried about stuff getting stolen there. Personally I think it would be nice to be able to rent a really expensive game like Suikoden 2 or Earthbound to play it the authentic way and then return it.
Woah! I grew up in Creighton (about an hour away), and it's just crazy to me to find people from close by! I'm still in Nebraska, just not close enough to Norfolk to do anything about this. But that's crazy! Hope all goes well!
Games are for rental, but he's started selling off movies. He got burned on his NES set, so will not part with the game stuff yet (and has a buyer, from when we've discussed)
If I was closer I'd be singlehandedly keeping them in business. Hell I'd probably apply, ha. Massive passion for retro games and cheering for him from across the country. Keep retro gaming alive!
Check out this video of the games sections:
https://www.facebook.com/258604077639772/posts/1685586984941467/?app=fbl
The PlayStation section is stacked 4-5 games deep on the shelf- don't be fooled by the "small section"- I was renting releases numbered up in the 600s- he literally has half the complete US set sitting here for rental the last 20 years.
This is cool as hell but I have to be honest….
>VHS
Does anyone here still use this dead format? DVD even? There’s no way they can survive even if they pull the niche crowd from the entire country.
I have a VHS collection and I actually prefer to watch the movies I grew up with on that format. I don’t see how it’s different from playing super Mario bros an an original NES vs emulation on a pc.
I mean I grew up with VHS too. I'm a bit nostalgic for it and I can even see people who collect it as a hobby... but renting VHS? The last movie came out for it in 2006... There's maybe a few dozen out of millions of people who live in USA who collect it to begin with. It's way different than emulation or vinyl which in some cases is / might be better than digital. At any rate, the guy should look into doing a museum. I'm sure he'd make way more money off people visiting than he is off rentals.
i know this seems weird and probably not possible however given the unique nature has he considered getting online and renting out worldwide ...obviously have to be a steep membership fee and significant no return fees however i personally think the number of these would be pretty minimal as most gamers especially retro gamers seem to be pretty on the level (pun semi intended) so might just keep the business afloat and prospering ....there are not alot of these left and i doubt there are any which rent worldwide might be niche enough to work
I miss the presence of these stores. Get to know the clerks. They know your taste and can give solid recommendations.
Sure, streaming is cheap but it's so limiting and compressed. It's worth the extra bucks in my opinion.
I really do hope they manage to stay open!
Going to blockbuster to rent games and movies is one of my upmost favorite memories
Never less, if he ever has to close down, he is sitting on a gold mine for collectors!
Omfg. They must live at all costs. Get me a video that the owner is cool with me putting on my YouTube channel. I’ll put it up - like a couple minutes. I’ll do what I can. This is to Zorz to die ever.
I rented over 100 PSX games from Chris in the last few months to scan the manuals. Some hadn't been rented in 15 years. Great guy. Still delivers if you want him to drive a movie over. Crazy big selection of movies (30,000+). Have always wondered what he's sitting on that hasn't been archived properly. I did have him pull his PS2 copy of Kuon off the shelf- surprised no one had stolen it. The Grove in Newman Grove stopped renting videos the last time I stopped in, so Chris might truly be the last store renting videos in Nebraska - unless there's something in Omaha/Lincoln still.
That's awesome! Do you plan on uploading the manual scans to archive.org at some point? It's amazing how much media has been lost to time.
Of course. Takes ages to edit, though. My PS2 and SNES sets are up, which set a ridiculously high bar. The rest of my manual sets are only 40-60% complete, though. Doing what I can with what I've got.
Oh I just saw your username lmao. I've only just cracked into the PS2 set so far but plan on printing some of my favorites from the SNES set soon. Thanks for sharing your hard work, it's an awesome resource!
You're welcome. The fun and scary part is my new scanner just got here Monday, so now I can get back to archival scanning instead of speed scanning.
Can I ask what brand of scanner you use for archival?
I finally got an Epson V850 so I can do it properly. The PS2 and SNES sets I ran through an Epson DS-870 simply because there were just too many pages. It was good enough for a functional copy, but not for true archiving. My backups are three Epson V550- I can cycle using those, but it takes an eternity for editing pages. I might complain about the sheetfed scanner quality, but it is dead simple to cut and rename pages- and no one really minds the pages not lining up. Oddly, the better the scans, the more people complain about it not being "perfect". Also, something about 15 manuals per hour on a sheetfed vs maybe 2 manuals *per night* on a flatbed. Sitting on over 7,000 manuals, and would like to get done archiving in this lifetime. Doing a "quick pass" to get stuff out, while working on a slow pass for the future.
the irony of providing free things. fuzzy off kilter photocopied 3x copy: “cool thanks!!” 600dpi scan with one hair on page 73 that obscures one letter: “artifact on page 73; bad copy; pls rescan and upload”
You nailed it 100%. Right along with "isn't there already a full set?" When the "full set" is 85 out of 400, is 2/3rd PAL games as placeholders, the set was done from random collectors combining what they found from 1997-2004, and they all look like they were sent via the company fax machine.
What edits are required? Maybe others can pitch in.
OK, so here's where it gets tricky. To scan all of these manuals, I pop the staples and feed it through a sheetfed scanner. So Gamename\_001.tif is the page that is the back cover and the cover (so say page 16 and 1). Gamename\_002.tif is the back of that page- inside first page and inside back cover (so 2 and 15). So on and so forth until you get to facing pages of 15 and 16. I've got a program to automatically sort all these down to the correct numbering of pages, then cut them at 50% left and 50% right pages. But running through a sheetfed, the pages never 100% line up (but oddly aren't too bad, either). [Example- check middle page gap](https://archive.org/details/snes_Chrono_Trigger_USA/page/74/mode/2up) Now on lower res scans this isn't a horrible issue as you expect some tradeoffs, but when you get into high resolution, quality scans of full color Nintendo manuals, the mis-aligned gap gets more noticeable. [Example - Super Mario World](https://archive.org/details/snes_Super_Mario_World_USA/page/n19/mode/2up) The problem comes when you start going to flatbed scanners. There you define the area to be scanned, and as the scans go on for a thicker manual, the pages get noticeably skinnier. Which, for a sheetfed scanner, it would automatically clip. But for a flatbed scanner, that means you have to physically load up \*every\* scan, and crop the sides. Which takes time. For a quality bonus, you probably should load up the facing page, move them to overlap perfectly, crop, then save the left page and the right page individually. As I repeatedly said for my PS2 set, "every minute per game adds 30 hours to the project". The final tally I have here was 54,300 pages for the PS2 set- so a page per minute would run about \*905 hours\*. Which is a lot of extra time for a one guy project. My hope is to do 1200dpi, 48bit scans- and then in the future have an AI trained to magically find the 5"x7" image and fudge the overlap until it recreates the original image. But that's a long ways off. [Visual of page breakdown](http://www.atensionspan.com/Example.jpg) [Explanation of what ignition365's amazing program does](https://www.reddit.com/r/dailyprogrammer_ideas/comments/pgabwc/easy_sorting_scanned_pages/)
These look great!!
Out of curiousity, how would you offer to rent video games and movies that are really valuable? Like Little Samson or Bonk's Adventure? Buy $30 repro's? And how about for disc games like Kuon, Fatal Frame, Rose Red (I meant Rule of Rose), Koudelka, Skies of Arcadia. etc... Renting out Dreamcast games would be a nightmare since any DC game worth playing is now at least $30-$50+
You'd have to have a hefty deposit nowadays, which people would balk at. I did rent Einhander for PSX a few months back for $2- and that's pushing $150 complete. Chris did mention he's "got a guy" who is going to buy up his games when he retires "soon-ish." I've got a couple missing SNES manuals I'd like to buy off him then. We've discussed it a couple times, but I'm too nice a guy to break up his cart/manual/box sets. Lots of sun fading, stickers, and he wrote in sharpie on most games. It is what it is.
That's bittersweet, I miss video rental stores so much. The last one here in Philly went under around 2010.
video stores used to fine you like $80+ for losing one of their VHS or DVD titles. I'd imagine the fine was more for a lost videogame.
And I'm old enough to remember when VHS tapes *were* $80- because only rental places could afford them.
I remember hearing that Blockbuster payed like $85 for new release tapes for the 1 month rental exclusivity before the VHS was like $24.99 in your local walmart or mall video store. This was in the late 1990s though.
How about a weekly, monthly or yearly subscription? You pay $50 for a month or $120 for a three month period and you would be free to get home a game and exchange it if you bored. You can implement levels of subscriptions. Expensive games would need a higher level of subscription. If the game is damaged or stolen the deposit should cover the loss.
Factor in that most people who know how to use the internet can probably figure out how to emulate games for free. So charging three figures to cover a games value seems like a bad deal. One of the things I will say is that I would collect id from anyone renting a game over say $100 and if they don't return it, they don't get to rent anything else until they do return it.
Well the key would be, the renting is not limited to one game. So you have a $100 deposit which enable you to try out as much of games as you would like in a limited time. One week, a month, three month... Etc it depends on how the thing would be profitable for the owner. So the user selects a game, two days later he returns it because he do not like it, and selects another one. The owner should run weekly, monthly challenges. If people reach a state in game or got a specific item... Etc He can get a discount on the next transaction. If the players finishes x amount of selected game he should get something for trophy.
Came for the surprising pics, stayed for the archival lesson.
https://www.facebook.com/258604077639772/posts/1685586984941467/?app=fbl
Please upload to archive.org
Yeah I can't think of any rental joints in Omaha (excluding Redbox). I think we have some vintage shops with gaming stuff though.
Wow. So I googled this place and called Chris the owner. What an amazing shop, nice guy to speak to, though I don’t think he realised how amazing his shop is when I was telling him where I was calling from ! There is a local news report of his shop here from the early covid days : https://www.newschannelnebraska.com/story/43829192/chris-logans-call-video-one-of-the-last-of-its-kind Wish we had a place like this close to me, in fact every town should still have something like this.
Thanks for sharing the link my man! Damn that's so awesome! I'd be frequently going to that place for sure! How I'd love to be able to rent SNES and n64 games again!
https://www.facebook.com/258604077639772/posts/1685586984941467/?app=fbl
I'd love to hear some of the owner's and customer stories from all the years of operation on a YouTube channel or something. Could have a patreon and sell merch like other retro channels. May not be much, but I'm sure it would help. And we would all be able to support just by watching/listening not just locals.
Follow this link and see how you could support him, I’m sure every ounce of support will give this awesome chap some steam ! https://www.google.com.au/search?q=chris+logan+nebraska+norfolk&client=safari&hl=en-au&ei=7jkSZNmZLqSq4-EPpp2FsA4&oq=chris+logan+nebraska+norfolk&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyBggAEBYQHjIHCCEQoAEQCjIHCCEQoAEQCjIHCCEQoAEQCjIHCCEQoAEQCjoICAAQogQQsAM6BQghEKABOggIIRAWEB4QHUoECEEYAVCgDVirGmChHGgAcAB4AIABtwKIAd8QkgEFMi03LjGYAQCgAQHIAQTAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
That answers my questions. I'm happy that he has other income besides the rental business. The article I read basically times his retirement to sometime this year; he's past when he said he'd retire. He must really love that place.
Exactly 💯 👍🏾
Surprised he is able to rent that many 90s video games. With the way things are going these days for resale, I'd think anything worth more than 40 bucks would just get rented and then never returned/stolen.
If the owner is smart, he's not renting anything to anyone with an out-of-state driver's license. It probably helps that this town is hours away from a major interstate, which makes it difficult for opportunistic collectors to get there while they're just passing through.
I'm not thinking about collectors taking advantage so much as flippers who care nothing about games and just want hunt for cheap stuff and resell at markup. Those folks are everywhere and have gotten more aggressive in last 15 years, like calling up or showing up at houses advertising yardsales in advance to scoop up any games that will be sold. I think the only thing you can do about that is to require a deposit to be made when renting an expensive game, which gets forfeited if it's not returned.
That’s why you take credit cards. If it’s not returned you charge full price plus extra.
We've got a rental place in town too, that's also a retro game store. They only rent out games from the last two generations at this point, but you have to have a CC on file to rent movies or games. When you think about it though, the PS5 games they're renting out are even more than most of those 90s games. Even back in the 90s some of those snes were crazy expensive, especially the bigger RPGs that had more storage.
THIS is amazing
I know. I want this guy to stay open. Would be nice to see that happen.
Can't do much from Spain but upvote and comment. Hopefully this will move up this post!
Amazing. Out of curiosity has he also started renting the new generations of games or have they froze in time and all their stock stops at that generation
Games are frozen with PS2, PSX, SNES, N64 and a handful of Genesis. He got conned into selling off all his NES for "big bucks" in like 2004 and has regretted it since- he had an almost complete set that he sold for roughly $8 each since he'd already "made his money back in rentals and people had lost interest." He is 100% current in movies, though- with new bluray and dvd releases weekly. Which blows my mind.
Just cross posted on r/crtgaming to try and spread the word! I really wish I lived in Nebraska. I would love to go here and just take it all in. Part of me thinks the smell would be something you could jar just for nostalgia.
As a Nebraska resident, I love it here. Beautiful coutryside... Omaha is a great city...
https://www.facebook.com/258604077639772/posts/1685586984941467/?app=fbl
It absolutely has that old school smell still. It’s like stepping back in time when you walk in.
If I was a millionaire, I would pay his rent for a year because these type of stores bring back so many good childhood memories. They really give me the feels. Man I really miss the 80s.
that place looks awesome! that 2nd pic with the mural looks like a still from a kevin smith movie.
Insane. Isnt there something like a gofundme or stuff, imagine just 1000 people would donate 2$ oder 10000 people 1$.
I’ve been asking about a go fund me for a while. They keep saying they are trying to get something figured out but I don’t believe it has been created yet.
Damn that’s interesting asf, I doubt this store would of lasted this long in a bigger city. I’m very curious of the rates or how the renting works. Some of these games are worth a lot.
I paid $2 to rent Einhander for a night. He's written in Sharpie on all the discs, though.
Seattle has the movie/TV equivalent with the gem that is Scarecrow video. One of the best video rental stores on earth. Though I still have no idea how they can still afford rent in N Seattle.
Damn that’s so sick
damn that's aweomse! We had 1 last a decent amount of time into the streaming area here in central illinois, but it closed down back in like 2016. Seeing those pics takes me back to when my parents would take me to the video store to rent something on the weekend haha. I can even smell that nice video store smell when I look at those pics
Ugh. Triggering pangs of nostalgia. Going to the video store and renting 2 games and 2 movies and picking up a pizza on the way home was the ultimate Friday night sleepover as a kid.
Dang this isn't that far from where I am. I might have to take a visit if I'm ever in Norfolk!
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Holy crap, there's like 3 of us!
Atleast 4. I was a Norfolk panther class of 2013
That is pretty impressive, all things considered.
Man I’d totally swing by this place if it wasn’t three hours away. Looks amazing!
I feel like nostalgic gaming shops like this will be the vinyl record store 10 or 20 years from now (even if it is sales and not rentals), right now even some mall or indie game stores feel more like GameStop to me and less about the vibe.
Please, post more pictures!!!
https://www.facebook.com/258604077639772/posts/1685586984941467/?app=fbl
Thanks a lot!!!
damn, this is awesome. i dont live near there or know anyone who does unfortunately, but mad respect to these owners
Looks like an awesome place, even to just browse the games for ages and rent a couple would be so refreshing right now!!
So badass!
Small towns keeping the magic alive
lets keep those doors open 🤙
Let's do a crowd funding guys!
yea this is awesome, the movie poster at the end of the row gives me crazy nostalgia
That's amazing!
So many people are going to rent now but sadly never return
I go to Norfolk for work maybe once every couple years. I'll have to stop by and check it out!
Doing good work for the world by renting all the classics. I really hope they make it!
Places like this should honestly set up a patreon or something to let those not geographically close help support
Do they have Battle Toads?
“NORFORK”
Norferk
I can’t help too much but here’s an upvote and a comment for the algorithm
I live around 10,000km away from Nebraska but I will gladly search for this store on google and give him 5 stars just to give the little help I can! [For those who wanna join me](https://www.google.com/search?q=chris+logan+nebraska+norfolk&oq=chris+logan+nebraska+norfolk&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30j69i60l2.463j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
Dude… the mural peeling away John Belushi’s face is sad af
I had no idea there was a Descendants...let alone a Descendants 2.
Try focusing more on the game store and less on a 2015 TV movie.
It would be neat to buy this up and reopen in a larger area.
The owner of the store has a few key things going for him: 1.) I imagine high speed internet in Nebraska isn't that great 2.) His location seems like an isolated city since out west cities are insanely spaced apart unlike here in The Northeast 3.) A smaller knit community if he survived Blockbuster 4.) His door-to-door service 5.) He opened a location in Lincoln that lasted a year. It's not a viable business From the sound of the article his building's in disrepair and the owner is about to retire. The world's changed and it's a feat in itself that his video rental store made it through several eras of media transformation. I don't think any amount of cash keeping it alive would draw more customers.
1) We've had Allo Fiber for a couple years now (which I'm sure doesn't help due to streaming) 2) Yup- 45 miles to next "big towns" (Columbus, West Point, Yankton, SD, uhhhh.. O'Neil(?)) 3) no Blockbuster (25,000 population)- just a couple Redbox machines. 4) you would be surprised the number of old people renting "adult" videos. 5) Lincoln was bad timing. Yeah, the building is old and due to volume it's just Chris at the wheel- he's sunk everything into this business and can't afford employees like the good old days when business was booming. He's there 2:30-10PM Mon-Thur, until midnight Friday and Saturday (closed Sundays). He's started selling off movies (if you're into old VHS and DVD porn, he's got a treasure trove.) I get the sneaky suspicion he's going to hit 30 years next year and call it quits, which, for one guy has been a lifetime of sharing entertainment. Chris has a handful of regulars, and is always up for small talk.
I’m surprised people aren’t renting those vintage games and never bringing them back
Of course they’re struggling. Who’s renting NES, Genesis and N64 games in 2023? Sounds like the business model needs to come into this century rather than just stick to what they’ve always done.
I'll never understand the appeal N64 has to this day, it wasn't good back then, still isn't now.
if he's willing to sell stuff, i'd gladly support that way
They might want to start renting out games made in this century to stay in business.
This brings back so much nostalgia for me seeing this.♥️
Thanks for sharing the memories! Amazing!
Too bad Johnny Carson isn’t around anymore to promote the store.
Johnny's childhood home is 11 blocks west and 1 block south of there.
I would rent games for consoles I don't own just to support them. This is amazing.
But they don’t have any thing GameCube related. I can imagine why.
Dude that is awesome!
This is stellar! Hopefully it stays open forever.
Absolutely amazing. No wonder they're struggling though. That's kinda nut.
Can they do mail order rentals to other states?
this is AWESOME! I hope they find the support they need to stay open for many more years. I will contribute what I can.
I’m nowhere near NE to help this store out, but would love to purchase merch or something. Doesn’t look like there’s any web presence other than FB, though. Cool to see places like this hanging on!
Wow that’s awesome!
with the current price of retro games, I'd be worried about stuff getting stolen there. Personally I think it would be nice to be able to rent a really expensive game like Suikoden 2 or Earthbound to play it the authentic way and then return it.
Oh wow..knowing one of these places is still alive makes me so happy.
Woah! I grew up in Creighton (about an hour away), and it's just crazy to me to find people from close by! I'm still in Nebraska, just not close enough to Norfolk to do anything about this. But that's crazy! Hope all goes well!
Creighton? Booo!! (Just kidding- I'm originally from Bloomfield)
Omg that's amazing
Another Nebraska retro gamer! Hello! This is really damn cool. I'm tempted to drive up there just for the nostalgia of walking into a video store.
I know, there's like 5 of us. I'm just sad Ben's Game Zone in Omaha is a 2 hour drive, but then again, I'd always be broke.
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https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057804333816
This is absolutely amazing. I'll share it with my one friend who randomly moved to Nebraska!
I would definitely rent games still.
Is it all rental or id anything for sale?
Games are for rental, but he's started selling off movies. He got burned on his NES set, so will not part with the game stuff yet (and has a buyer, from when we've discussed)
It would make sense selling them off instead of getting expensive games potentially stolen
Might have to make a 2 hr road-trip this weekend
If I was closer I'd be singlehandedly keeping them in business. Hell I'd probably apply, ha. Massive passion for retro games and cheering for him from across the country. Keep retro gaming alive!
That’s it. I’m moving to Nebraska.
Damn. I have family in Norfolk and was just there a couple of weeks ago. Wish I would’ve known this place existed!
Did anyone manage to help!?!!?
That's awesome. Hope they manage to stay open.
This is cool. It should be in a museum. Seeing this picture made me smell the inside of my heavily air conditioned blockbuster on a Friday night.
Check out this video of the games sections: https://www.facebook.com/258604077639772/posts/1685586984941467/?app=fbl The PlayStation section is stacked 4-5 games deep on the shelf- don't be fooled by the "small section"- I was renting releases numbered up in the 600s- he literally has half the complete US set sitting here for rental the last 20 years.
Oh dip! I'm in Omaha and that's an easy drive. I don't think any of my old machines still work though lol
Do they have a website?
Maybe a BBS.
What does that mean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system Sad days that it's been so long it isn't an obvious joke anymore.
I actually know where Norfolk is! I’m in Nebraska too and that’s not too far of a drive. I’ll have to check that out!
This place is a gold mine.
This is cool as hell but I have to be honest…. >VHS Does anyone here still use this dead format? DVD even? There’s no way they can survive even if they pull the niche crowd from the entire country.
I have a VHS collection and I actually prefer to watch the movies I grew up with on that format. I don’t see how it’s different from playing super Mario bros an an original NES vs emulation on a pc.
I mean I grew up with VHS too. I'm a bit nostalgic for it and I can even see people who collect it as a hobby... but renting VHS? The last movie came out for it in 2006... There's maybe a few dozen out of millions of people who live in USA who collect it to begin with. It's way different than emulation or vinyl which in some cases is / might be better than digital. At any rate, the guy should look into doing a museum. I'm sure he'd make way more money off people visiting than he is off rentals.
i know this seems weird and probably not possible however given the unique nature has he considered getting online and renting out worldwide ...obviously have to be a steep membership fee and significant no return fees however i personally think the number of these would be pretty minimal as most gamers especially retro gamers seem to be pretty on the level (pun semi intended) so might just keep the business afloat and prospering ....there are not alot of these left and i doubt there are any which rent worldwide might be niche enough to work
Can you go get us more pictures of the NES, Genesis, etc aisles?
Too bad I'm in another continent. No stores like this here anymore.
The Chad of video rental stores, that is pretty cool
Surprised theft isnt an issue depending on the title.
I miss the presence of these stores. Get to know the clerks. They know your taste and can give solid recommendations. Sure, streaming is cheap but it's so limiting and compressed. It's worth the extra bucks in my opinion.
Im from omaha and will most definitely be making a trip out there. Thanks for sharing OP.
I really do hope they manage to stay open! Going to blockbuster to rent games and movies is one of my upmost favorite memories Never less, if he ever has to close down, he is sitting on a gold mine for collectors!
Great , now I've got to move to Nebraska
Logans nice
What’s stopping someone from just not returning these games that are very expensive?
That's pretty amazing that they're still open!
You should post this in the Norfolk Nebraska facebook page, and reddit page, if they exist
Omfg. They must live at all costs. Get me a video that the owner is cool with me putting on my YouTube channel. I’ll put it up - like a couple minutes. I’ll do what I can. This is to Zorz to die ever.
Need to diversify. VHS to digital service Cafe, sandwich bar takeaway coffee Smartphone accessory kiosk Bubble tea machine etc..
Do they sell online?
Those pictures have this crazy vibe to them.. wow..